Americas get off light in tsunami impact

posted at 9:35 am on March 12, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

After the massive quake in Japan yesterday, Pacific Ocean nations braced for the impact of potentially catastrophic tsunamis created by the 8.9-level initial shock and the large aftershocks that continue in the region. Countries began evacuating coastal areas and warned citizens not to venture near beaches. Fortunately, the damage and loss of life were limited, although tsunamis and flooding occurred as far south as Chile:

Despite the power of Japan’s biggest-ever quake that killed at least 1,300 people, the tsunami waves were relatively benign as they rolled into the Americas, causing only isolated flooding, and fears of a catastrophe proved unfounded.

The tsunami swept past Chile’s remote Easter Island in the South Pacific, generating swells but no major waves, and there was little impact when they made landfall on Chile’s coast.

But the sea later flooded as far as 330 feet inland in Dichato and Talcahuano, some 310 miles south of the capital Santiago and near the epicenter of the massive 8.8 magnitude quake that struck Chile in February 2010.

In the US, the damage was limited to the coast, as boats were smashed and docks damaged. One man is still missing:

About 35 boats and most of the harbor docks were damaged in Crescent City near the California border with Oregon, where waves were more than 6 feet. Santa Cruz south of San Francisco sustained about $2 million in damages to docks and vessels, emergency management officials said.

Rescue services were searching for a 25-year-old man who was swept out to sea while standing on a sandbar at the mouth of the Klamath River in California.

The port of Brookings-Harbor, the busiest recreation port on the Oregon coast, was largely destroyed, said operations manager Chris Cantwell. “Right now we are in the middle of a big mess,” he said. “The surge pulled some (boats) out to sea, about a dozen sank and we’ve got boats everywhere sitting on top of one another and all over the place.”

Japanese authorities have told the U.N.’s atomic watchdog they are making preparations to distribute iodine to people living near nuclear power plants affected by Friday’s earthquake, the Vienna-based agency said.

Iodine can be used to help protect the body from radioactive exposure.

In Japan on Saturday, radiation leaked from a damaged nuclear reactor after an explosion blew the roof off in the wake of the massive earthquake, but the government insisted that radiation levels were low.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said there had been no major change in the level of radiation after the explosion because it did not occur inside the reactor container.

“The nuclear reaction facility is surrounded by a steel storage machine, which is then surrounded by a concrete building. This concrete building collapsed. We learnt that the storage machine inside did not explode,” he told a news conference.

Edano initially said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate, but then an hour later the boundary was extended to 20 km (13 miles). TV footage showed vapor rising from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

We were very fortunate, but we should remember those who weren’t. The Salvation Army has already begun operations in Japan to provide assistance to the displaced. Be generous.

I’m not a nuclear guy, but I did serve on a CGN, so I’m a little familiar with some of the process and terms. What I’m wondering is that when the problems started, why didn’t they SCRAM the reactor, or drop the cores out to shut it down?

The term stood for Safety Cut Rope Axe Man, from back in the early days; they used a rope to raise the rods and start the reaction. In the event of a problem, there was a guy standing by with an axe to cut the rope, drop the core out, thus shutting it down. It’s done mechanically now, so I can only suspect the quake did damage to that system, maybe binding things up or something?

“The nuclear reaction facility is surrounded by a steel storage machine, which is then surrounded by a concrete building. This concrete building collapsed. We learnt that the storage machine inside did not explode,” he told a news conference.

H2 accumulation will do that I’m curious what system was in place to handle it, or if H2 production exceeded the expectations. This is what the greenies what to replace gas with.

It seems they did SCRAM the reactors, but they couldn’t keep the cooling water circulating – the heat build-up from the residual and ongoing slower reactions built up and may have melted the cores, further restricting coolant flow and diminishing the rod’s ability to moderate the reactions. Both of those create a vicious cycle of more heat and more melting. Plus explosive gasses (hydrogen) – which may be what they were venting.

(Reuters) – Japan should not expect a repeat of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster after an explosion blew the roof off one of its nuclear power plants that had been shaken in a huge earthquake, experts said on Saturday.

Japan’s Daiichi 1 reactor north of the capital Tokyo began leaking radiation after the 8.9-magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami, and swiftly prompted fears of a nuclear meltdown.

But experts said pictures of mist above the plant suggested only small amounts of radiation had been expelled as part of measures to ensure its stability, far from the radioactive clouds that Chernobyl spewed out when it exploded in 1986.

“The explosion at No. 1 generating set of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, which took place today, will not be a repetition of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” said Valeriy Hlyhalo, deputy director of the Chernobyl nuclear safety center.

At first it didn’t look like much – then it did! I remember being a kid and reading about the Easter quake in Alaska. The person described trying to escape, in the dark, over rubble, and the waves just kept coming and coming and the water getting higher. Nicely illustrated in the video.

The aftershocks were so frequent, you didn’t notice when they stopped. There was a big jolt this morning and a longer, moderate size quake a few hours ago. My suspended ceiling lamp has been swaying all day. Quiet now, though.

“The explosion at No. 1 generating set of the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan, which took place today, will not be a repetition of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster,” said Valeriy Hlyhalo, deputy director of the Chernobyl nuclear safety center.

If you sat down with the goal of designing the worst possible way to heat up water, the Chernobyl reactors would be your answer. Efficient in the production of heat, but just dumb in every other way.

I particularly enjoyed their attempt to use liquid sodium as a coolant in another design. And it worked great until it lost all power and the coolant solidified in place. Forever.

nvrmnd about my last post, just read nukephys. post on the other thread… and just a reminder, as I’m sure has been pointed out, nuke reactors can’t create a nuclear explosion. I’m sure someone has already admonished our erstwhile blog hosts for the pic on the other thread.

Thank you. I consider myself very lucky though, compared to a lot of other people here. Even in my building, almost every apartment got flooded from broken plumbing and busted water heaters, but my apartment was spared.

I really feel bad for Fukushima. It’ll take a long time for the prefecture to recover.

Been thinking about Kurosawa’s Dreams sequence when the Mt.Fuji reactor explodes. It’s a dream, so the effects are exaggerated, but the dialog is very chilling in light of recent events.

Re., the the reactor issue, not the quake(s) and tsunami. Though it could be a cultural difference in which they’d remain calm at the gates of hell and our media freaks out when rain comes to Southern California.

I wrote this in the other thread, but I think that it’s worth repeating here.

BWRs have a reactor vessel surrounded by a steel containment vessel which is surrounded by a building. Without power to drive the emergency core cooling system pumps, they were cooling the reactor by venting steam from the reactor into the steel containment vessel. Once pressure gets too high in this vessel, a rupture disk opens, venting steam directly into the building. Since this building is not designed to handle any significant level of pressure, it would rapidly fail. This is what we saw in the “explosion.” All boiler vessels have a relief valve that opens to prevent failure of the vessel. Since the radiation levels are still low, this means that the nuclear fuel integrity has not been significantly compromised. Water/steam in a BWR is normally mildly radioactive, due to pinhole fuel failures that develop during normal operations. So, the existence of low levels of radioactive fission products would be expected for a steam venting event. As long as they can keep the reactor core covered with water, the fuel rods should maintain most of their integrity, so radiation leaks should remain low. Giving potassium iodide to the local residents is simply a precaution that prevents any significant uptake of radioactive iodine, if a more significant fuel failure were to occur. The critical time period for an event like this is the first several hours. After that, outside power and coolant can be brought in to ensure that the reactor core remains covered. Bottom line…if we haven’t seen large releases of radioactive fission products by now, it is unlikely that we will.

I’m a little disappointed that the Japanese nuclear plant operators haven’t provided a knowledgeable PR group to make sure that speculation and anti-nuke drivel aren’t taking control of the news cycle. There seems to be a lot of misinformation flowing right now.

I’m a little disappointed that the Japanese nuclear plant operators haven’t provided a knowledgeable PR group to make sure that speculation and anti-nuke drivel aren’t taking control of the news cycle. There seems to be a lot of misinformation flowing right now.

NuclearPhysicist on March 12, 2011 at 10:49 AM

I agree, even foxnews is buying into the hysteria. There goes new nuclear power plants in the U.S. for another couple generations.

And yet we still had a few Californians swept out to sea when they went to “watch the big wave”. So far, all but one have been rescued (he died). As usual, most of America’s problems are self-inflicted.

Already made my donation to the Salvation Army. My grandmother always insisted on contributing to them and NOT the Red Cross. WWII era folks all seem to have some sort of beef with the Red Cross. In any event, she’s trained me well. My relief donations always go to the Salvation Army.

The real scary part; the Northwest Pacific Rim has a fault line similar to Japans, and is reportedly “in the time window” of having a similar eruption of plates. When you folks visit the new Pacific Ocean shoreline, (somewhere just below the Siskiyou Mountain Range), be sure to throw some flowers in on an outgoing tide, where I’ll be with Davy Jones…….

The real scary part; the Northwest Pacific Rim has a fault line similar to Japans, and is reportedly “in the time window” of having a similar eruption of plates. When you folks visit the new Pacific Ocean shoreline, (somewhere just below the Siskiyou Mountain Range), be sure to throw some flowers in on an outgoing tide, where I’ll be with Davy Jones…….

These reactor facilities seem to have one major “design flaw.”
The genius that did their “failure analysis” seemed to overlook the fact the large earthquakes are often accompanied by a tsunami.
From the TV images and pictures, these nuclear facilities appear to be built on a rising bank on the side of a river not far from the ocean. It appears from the stories that the backup generators were disabled by water damage, that the backup generators are near the bottom of the river bank .. a perfect place for a tsunami to disable them.

Keep in mind that Japan has more than 2 nuclear plants with 5 nuclear reactors. In fact, there are 17 operating nuclear power plants with 55 reactors in Japan. Most behaved properly in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami.

Did they say what caused the generators to die? Sounds like someone may have been gundecking PMS

WordsMatter on March 12, 2011 at 10:47 AM

That, my friends, is the million dollar question. And as soon as the post-event inquiry begins at these facilities, my guess is the nuke plant operators here in the US will be focused on the design discussions. Mainly to see if their plants are susceptible to the same chain of events.

I’m a little disappointed that the Japanese nuclear plant operators haven’t provided a knowledgeable PR group to make sure that speculation and anti-nuke drivel aren’t taking control of the news cycle. There seems to be a lot of misinformation flowing right now.

NuclearPhysicist on March 12, 2011 at 10:49 AM

The entire scenario would play out differently here. Our Plants have an ER group specifically setup to handle this very thing, and all local and state EP organizations would be front and center. But remember different doesn’t mean better and they have a ton of other things going on at the same time.

I’ve had it. I’ve turned off all news reports. They’re moving on over into hysteria land and I don’t need to listen to that crap. I’ll find out what happened when the dust clears. One thing for sure the folks at my old plant will definitely be getting first hand copies of after action reports from Japan. I’ll just wait till they start coming through and hit a couple of my friends up for copies. Screw the media.

It is difficult to believe what is being giving to the press if you know about TEPCO’s checkered past.

nor on March 12, 2011 at 11:04 AM

Sure, TEPCO is going to intentionally mislead the public, emergency responders, and JSDF with the entire world news media, IAEA, and God knows who else up in their drawers. They DO have a “checkered past,” so to speak, but I don’t think they’re BSing anyone now.

The containment building that exploded appears to be Fukushima I. Fukushima I is the first nuclear plant to be constructed and run entirely by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and is the smallest Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) of the 6 units at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.
There are 3 different nuclear facilities in Fukushima Prefecture, with a total of 17 reactor units. All are owned by TEPCO.

I suspect that this event will result in close examination of the backup generators at all nuclear power plants. When you lose off-site power (almost a given for a major earthquake), these generators are the only means of making sure that the heat from decay of fission products in the reactor fuel is removed by the emergency core cooling systems. As we’ve seen from the Japanese earthquake, unless you ensure that these generators and their transmission systems will survive and remain operational for the environments that will exist during and after the earthquake, you are forced to use methods of heat removal that are not optimal and that risk significant degradation of the reactor fuel integrity.

Pretty rusty considering it’s been about 13 years or so since I actually had to do one. But I could probably “Nuke” my way through one. I always hated FR-H1 though which is what they’ll be in now or it’s equivalent in Japan.

His major accomplishment this week was meeting with the Chicago Blackhawks and getting a #44 jersey with his name on it. They also gave him a small replica of the Stanley Cup, and he complained that it was kind of small. Jackass.

I suspect that this event will result in close examination of the backup generators at all nuclear power plants.

Not so right about this, at least for a PWR.

When you lose off-site power (almost a given for a major earthquake), these generators are the only means of making sure that the heat from decay of fission products in the reactor fuel is removed by the emergency core cooling systems.

We had steam driven emergency feed pumps that I could operate and control manually with a total loss of power. I had a dedicated emergency feed tank with lots of water and even the capability to take a suction on a huge lake for feed if needed. That coupled with the design capability to establish and maintain a natural circulation condition in the reactor coolant system. I could have removed decay heat from our reactors for a long time with a total loss of power. I could have cooled the plant down if needed, but most likely scenario would have been to maintain mode 4 with coolant temperature between 250 deg F and 340 deg F until we could restore power to at least one emergency bus and get our safety systems back. Just need a couple of operators stationed around the plant and some way to talk to them. We even had sound powered phones if we couldn’t charge the batteries of our radios.

I forgot that some nuke plants are able to rely on steam-driven pumps, but many don’t. Obviously, the Japanese plants didn’t have this capability. Those that rely solely on diesel generators are probably already starting to gear up for a critical evaluation of their response to large seismic events.

The major potentials are as indicated in other posts above: the San Andreas, the New Madrid, and the Juan de Fuca plate.

The San Andres, in the locked area from San Francisco area and northward, is overdue but will be a strike-slip movement for the most part. Destruction will be massive, but any generated tsunami will not be as a bad as the magnitude of the rupture would indicate.

The New Madrid has been restless lately but is most likely is reliving stress buildup and might not be ready for a large failure. The problem there is that the system is not exposed and not enough information is available to determine if there is a locked portion that could rupture when some stress is transferred to it from an adjacent quake.

The Juan de Fuca plate is another animal. It’s a subduction plate on the rim of the Pacific Plate. The mechanics of failure are identical to the mega quakes of Japan, New Zealand, Chile and Alaska. It is overdue. Mapping on the coast of the northwest indicates mega quakes associated with it in the past with accompanying huge tsunamis. The generated tsunami associated with a failure on this plate will be ashore in Washington and Oregon only minutes after the inhabitants realize there has been a quake.

BTW, earlier I saw some wild pictures from KITV in Honolulu showing a house on the Kona side of the Big Island that had actually been swept out to sea by the tsunami. So Hawa’i may not have been spared as much as earlier reports indicated.